In 2017, we held our very first DFTB conference in Brisbane.

We didn’t know if it would work.
We didn’t know if anyone would come.
We certainly didn’t know that five years later we would return to the same city carrying the weight of a global pandemic, an entirely online conference, and a community that had grown far beyond what we imagined.

Between 2017 and 2022, the world changed.

For a long time, DFTB existed in pixels.
Zoom rooms.
Time zone spreadsheets.
Muted microphones.
Frozen faces.

So when we stepped back into Brisbane for DFTB22, it felt different.

The river still curved lazily through the city.
The light still cut sharply across the pavements.
The coffee was still excellent.

But we were not the same.

Walking into the venue that first morning felt like exhaling after holding your breath for too long.

There is something you can’t replicate online.

The low murmur of clinicians greeting one another.
The shuffle of lanyards.
The collective intake of breath before a keynote begins.
The way laughter spreads through a room like a wave.

DFTB22 wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t trying to prove anything.

It felt grounded. Assured. Mature.

We were no longer asking, “Can we do this?”

We were asking, “How do we do this well?”

The City Between the Sessions

Between sessions, I found myself at the Queensland Art Gallery.

There was an exhibition by Chiharu Shiota - vast rooms filled with intricate webs of thread, suspended objects, memory made visible.

Standing inside those installations, you don’t just look at the work.

You’re held inside it.

Thousands of strands.
Each is fragile alone.
Strong together.

It struck me that DFTB22 felt a little like that.

A community woven over the years.
Across cities.
Across pandemics.
Across disciplines.

Each conversation another thread.
Each collaboration another connection.

From the outside, it might look like a conference.

From the inside, it feels like something held together by relationships.

Brisbane wasn’t just a return to a venue.

It was a return to being physically inside the web we’d been building all along.

Moments That Stay With You

Having Joe Brumm walk onto the stage was surreal in the best possible way.

The creator of Bluey - a show that has quietly reshaped how families talk about emotions, play, and repair - speaking at a paediatric conference.

There were small Bluey and Bingo figurines tucked around the stage.

It was joyful.

But it was also a reminder: if we forget the wonder of childhood, we risk reducing paediatrics to protocols and pathology.

Childhood is not a diagnosis.

It is something we protect.

Then there was the session that took us somewhere more uncomfortable.

Jo Tully, Bindu Bali and Tim Druce explored what really happens when you make a child protection notification.

Not the flowchart.
Not the bullet points.

The system.
The ripple effects.
The weight of that phone call.

It was thoughtful. Honest. Necessary.

Because caring for children doesn’t end at recognition - it extends into understanding consequences.

And somewhere in between, Craig McBride quietly reframed the whole enterprise of research:

“It starts with one.”

Not the cohort.
Not the publication.
Not the metric.

The child in front of you.

DFTB now reaches millions of readers each year.

But the work still begins - and ends - with one patient.

That tension between scale and intimacy felt clearer in Brisbane than ever before.

The Echo

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be uploading the DFTB22 talks to YouTube.

Not as an archive.

But as an echo.

Some ideas land differently when revisited.
Some talks deserve a second listen.
Some conversations continue long after the applause fades. You can follow the playlist here.​

Brisbane was our beginning.

Brisbane again reminded us who we are becoming.

In 2026, we’ll gather in Glasgow.

Not to recreate the past.
Not to repeat what’s worked before.

But to continue the arc.

If you want to be in the room — to feel the murmur, the laughter, the silence when something truly lands — we’d love you to join us.

👉 Tickets for DFTB26 in Glasgow are available now:
​https://dftb26.com/​

Because some things are better experienced together.